Functional Safety of a System-on-Chip Based Safety-Critical Structural Health Monitoring System

Structural health monitoring (SHM) is an effective tool for ensuring integrity and safety, recognizing the evolution of damage at a very precise level. An SHM system that satisfies functional safety requirements can be the absolute solution for a safety-critical system. During the last two decades, evaluating frameworks regarding their safety level has become a major topic within the research community and inside the industry. However, several challenges still endure within the functional safety evaluation. The focus of this paper is to evaluate the functional safety of a System-on-Chip (SoC) and the components of the structural health monitoring systems used for a safety-critical component of railway vehicles. Analyze the safety requirements and evaluate the functional safety of the SoC and SHM system components concerning compliance with the safety standards EN 61508 and EN 60812. However, the evaluation is addressed from three different perspectives: a comprehensive system model, failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA), and fault tree analysis (FTA). The system model portrays the central information in the product development of safety-relevant systems. Inductive and deductive functional safety analysis methods such as FMEA and FTA are derived from the system model by the normative specifications and consequently formalized by EN 60812. These methods are organized descriptions of the failures and the connections between them. The continuous dynamic development documentation of the system model, FMEA and FTA plays a central role in the traceability of the system failures. This investigation's evaluation, perceptions, and outcomes are then used to develop a fail-safe SHM system.